I agree, and of course the devil is in the details. Now I will embark on an effort to illuminate what appears to me to be our differing details and our agreements. Let us proceed with some noodle baking!!

Consider for a moment that infinity is a state, which essentially defines raw space. When I say raw, I mean it is physically not a part of our reality. This raw space I consider infinity.

It appears that your "raw space" is my "Void" and we agree it is not physically real as in being a form of energy, however, it is because of it's absolute lack of energy it can be viewed as infinite or at least potentially infinite. Yes, I like that description better. Your raw space and my void is nothing and as such it exhibits the characteristic of potential infinity. I think we both agree that "space" is a form of energy but then you borrow that term and qualify it with "raw" to make it identical to my "void". To me, borrowing the term "space" has the potential to add confusion in the mind of a reader. Henceforth, I will use the word "void" for you to interpret as "raw space".

It is the two halves of infinity that drive existence. Infinity is the engine of creation, not a concept in the minds of mankind, but not physically part of our reality at the same time. Infinity flows through us, and we are a finite, and a perpetual reflection of the greater process. We are simultaneously expanding and contracting, for a net gain of 0.

I reordered this paragraph to precede the other one of yours that follows. To say that infinity can have two halves does not make sense to me. If to be infinite requires the lack of being physical, then I cannot agree that absolute nothing is the engine of creation where creation requires an end that is something. If we can agree that the void is a potential of infinity then, of course it is "not physically part of our reality", but is I think, much more like a mental concept. To say that infinity, which is nothing, "flows" does not make sense to me. To say "we are a finite, and a perpetual reflection of the greater process" also does not make sense to me and seems to be vague. I agree that something like the real physical part of our universe can expand and contract by transforming and not creating or destroying energy.

Infinity to me implies motion. It's that edge you reach out to touch, but it always keeps drifting just out of reach. It just keeps going endlessly while trying to find maximum scale or resolution. And that's a two way street leading in and out. It is the vastness and the nothingness simultaneously defining each other in a codependent manner. The further out it stretches, the closer to nothing it gets, but it's never able to become everything and nothing in the process, so it just keeps going.

If something has the property of infinity and thereby is not physically real I do not understand how it can have or imply motion. Using the word "reach", I find too anthropomorphic to describe the motion of non life. Your use of the word "vastness", I feel sure, is describing the physically real energy of our universe and, I agree, that it and the void define "each other in a codependent manner". The "stretches" you refer to is, I think, the "expanding and contracting" mentioned in your previous paragraph that applies to the physically real universe and, if so, we are in agreement.

I imagine the rate of the process as constant, blossoming out in a spherical manner, so the volume grows at an exponential rate, and the potential to be nothing grows at the inverse rate. V=4/3*π*r^3*C^2

I agree with the use of the word "spherical" but I do not see the "blossoming" meaning expanding as being linearly constant. Likewise with the contracting.

The only place we differ is location. I consider there are an infinitely rising number of universes, and we're a mere speck of dust in the aftermath of the process. One of countless.

Here, we disagree completely. I see our universe to be true to the definition of the word to be ONE and not multiple. I think this view is consistent with the common physics position that gravity has no range limit and if the universe is eternal then it's end state must be one.

Quote from: timemachine on Yesterday at 00:36:06" some things, even physical things, are Unknowable"

I would also have to disagree with this statement. Everything in my view is knowable. There's an answer for everything. It's the verification process where we run into trouble. We can't validate every single hypothesis with physical evidence, so we have to eventually trust our logic and reasoning on the problem.

Everything that we can know is dependent on our observations to which we apply "our logic and reasoning" and this results in a "sea of probabilities" pertaining to everything. This means that we can depend on virtually nothing to be absolutely 100 percent known. Newton might have thought he knew everything about motion until Einstein arrived. Our observations have physical limitations that block our path to knowledge. The speed of electromagnetic energy limits our access to the universe and it's history. The CERN particle accelerator technology is the current limit to access the very small and if improved we will be at a different limit and eventually we will be totally blocked from observing anything smaller.

I contemplate a perpetual universe continually going through this process of creation and inhalation. A perpetual series of big bangs. They're all bound together in the evolution of our universe, like a string of pearls.

Yeah but, surely you did not really mean "creation" and annihilation. I think you meant "expands" and "contracts" as you previously stated.

Our concept of time, which is really rooted in a physical awareness of past events, while predicting future events, is simply bound to this string of pearls. We remember past events, because we have lived past events. When we experience an event in the present, it binds that event to the past pearl strand event forming a cohesive memory, in an entanglement process. We can never know exactly what the future holds for us because the future event is still unbound to a past pearl strand event in the present, so future events are a bit more cloudy, or uncertain. Maybe Deja Vu is a bit more real than we give it credit for.

The universe is mind boggling... So many possibilities, so little time to explore them all...

YEP !! I think we pretty much in agreement about time as long as you consider it to be a mental concept, not a physical reality, but it is dependent on the physical existence of motion.

Yeah but, surely you did not really mean "creation" and annihilation. I think you meant "expands" and "contracts" as you previously stated.

I just like the words in the same sentence, CREATION! ANNIHILATION! They pair well, like a fine wine and cheese. More or less I am referring to a virtual beginning and end, or perpetual big bang. I didn't want to impose my crazy ideas too deeply on your thread, but since you seem a bit confused on my assertions, I think I need to clear things up a bit.

The big bang starts from the opposite side of the spectrum in my view. It's not a condensed ball of energy expanding outwards. Our universe starts at its maximum size, and mass contracts inward. Spacetime I redefine as time-energy. It's basically energy sans space. Space is completely thrown out of the equation as meaningless. The time-energy properties are inverse of mass energy, but they work similar in nature. They repel each other at the inverse square laws. This is also why we can't detect it, because you can't use mass-energy to directly detect time-energy, because they oppose each other like a magnet. This time-energy is all around us, and what we perceive as space. It has various densities. The time that we see in SR is really energy density signatures. For example, at the bottom of a gravity well time may be perceived as 5 seconds, versus 10 seconds at the top of the gravity well. I assume you're familiar with time dilation and how it works. In this case, the time-energy density is double at the top of the gravity well. It is the perceived vacuum of space.

Anyway... Mass-energy is a contractive energy, and time-energy an expansive energy. At the very beginning of the universe, mass-energy dominated. As it contracts inward and cools, it converts directly to time energy. The volume of time-energy has been rising since the beginning, and increasing in density, while mass-energy falls. Eventually, all that will remain is time-energy, and at that very instance, bang. Maybe we'll be left with a single massive black hole? Maybe it's when mass-energy=time-energy? Maybe the blackhole loses it's cohesion and releases all the particles into time-energy? Whole bunch of different possibilities, and I'm not settled on any particular one at this point. The bottom line is, we are not really expanding and accelerating, mass-energy is simply receding against a rising tide of time-energy. The redshift is being caused by the increased time-energy density, slowing light down as mass-energy contracts inward. The end of the universe is the beginning of the universe. There is no dark energy per se, but I suppose you could call time-energy dark energy if you so desired. It's kind of a rolling repetitive process of big bang after big bang, for a sum total of 0. It's all just energy swapping states, until one dominates fully, and then comes crashing down. We are 100% energy. We do not plot courses within space, we plot them within energy. We are finite, but perpetual in nature. Infinity lies outside our perception.

I ran through it as quickly and briefly as I could. Left a lot of the reasoning out. Hope you get it.

Our path is never blocked. Knowing everything about the universe is possible, in my view. Verifying everything with absolute certainty and/or physical evidence is not. Yes, our observations are limited and always will be, but the right answer always hangs out there somewhere. There can only be one right answer. It will make sense when we get it right, and we'll know we're right, because they're be no other way it can be logically.

Henceforth, I will use the word "void" for you to interpret as "raw space".

Yes, we are in perfect agreement here. Space in its raw form is a void. I worry some will also confuse it with space-time. When you have a void, it is sans dimension. That means there is no scale in either direction that has any meaning. It is as close to everything as it can get, and as close to nothing as it can get, but neither direction has a definable end. The scale of this void is a completely meaningless concept. It's why I consider it not relevant to our 3-D universe. How could we plot spacial coordinates in the void of space? Give me some energy, and now we have something to talk about. That's the problem with the big bang concept which has always bothered bothered. What does condensed mean to a void? Where would it exist? Why would it explode in any particular direction? I know, EXPAND. Blah blah blah.. No way. It's an illogical concept destined to fail eventually.

since you seem a bit confused on my assertions, I think I need to clear things up a bit.

Obviously, I was confused on your original posting of assertions because there seemed to be similarities. After reading this complete posting I realize that our viewpoints are virtually non overlapping. You only said three things in this post with which I can agree. 1. We are 100% energy. 2. We are finite, but perpetual in nature. 3. Infinity lies outside our perception. That being the case, I thank you for not going any deeper into your (in your words) "crazy ideas" and that you "Left a lot of the reasoning out". Regards.

Our path is never blocked. Knowing everything about the universe is possible, in my view.

You are certainly entitled to your view, as am I. You say" never blocked". I say, blocked right now so that nullifies your "never".Further, temporary blockages are inevitable and our puny humanity is not, and in my opinion, will never be adequate to overcome all blockages for eternity. ha ha !! Our days are numbered to a quantity that it is not too difficult to estimate and then we will be extinct. Oh! You think that there is an ultimate possible answer to all questions. Even if that is true, humanity will never see them. Even the possibility of self replicating robots with ever improved intelligence and in possession of super luminal transportation will not be able to outrun or survive a collapse of the universe. Regards.

Quote from: timemachine on Yesterday at 20:51:49Henceforth, I will use the word "void" for you to interpret as "raw space".

"Yes, we are in perfect agreement here. /////////// Give me some energy, and now we have something to talk about. //////////" OKAY but hereafter you seem to shoot out into left field. I do not recall either of us saying anything about 'condensing a void'. or 'void explosion'

Spacetime I redefine as time-energy. It's basically energy sans space. Space is completely thrown out of the equation as meaningless. The time-energy properties are inverse of mass energy, but they work similar in nature. They repel each other at the inverse square laws.

MORE Gobble Dee Goop !!! Other that applying that comment to what both you and "Thebox" say about time I will butt-out of your mutual mental (mast#### No, be nice!) confusion conversation on time. Regards.

Einstein used the term space-time as if time was a dimension. We can agree that X,Y, and Z are dimensions. Time is strange. It is a good way to describe things but I believe that light speed is the correct dimension. Time is distance over light speed. meters/ meters per second. As I see it the universe we live in is a dual light speed universe. When a charge oscillates between the Co dimension and the Cs dimension, mass is produced. Mass in kilograms equals coulomb meters per second. Thus mass is a measure of charge and light-speed. Therefore time as a separate dimension does not exist. Einstein was wrong but his measurements are quite good. It is easier to use the imaginary concept of time mathematically than the more complex light speed term.

I agree. My opinion is that time is not a physical reality but is a mental construct that helps us to understand motion. We use a clock, which uses a repetitive motion that is hopefully consistent to quantify this concept by relating other motions relative to the clock motion. Regards.

To time machine: Einstein used conventional thinking. We had a ruler and a clock. The Earth spins on its axis and that produces one day. As we move toward light speed, the clock slows. So everything was related to time. Yesterday was gone but if you could travel faster that light speed C, you could return to yesterday. But that is false.The universe of this split second only exists for a tiny amount of time. Only the memory exists in light, gravitational, and electromagnetic fields. Yet the fields are always changing. Thus we rely upon the photons to carry the memory of the past. The photons travel a certain distance and we use this to produce a time.

To time machine: Einstein used conventional thinking. We had a ruler and a clock. The Earth spins on its axis and that produces one day. As we move toward light speed, the clock slows. So everything was related to time.

In my view, t he the slowing of a clock by moving it as a whole has nothing to do with slowing time. I think, this test shows that motion of the whole of something affects the motions of sub components of the whole.

The universe of this split second only exists for a tiny amount of time.

The universe is in constant motion and its energy, in one for or another is eternal. Motion is a real physical form of energy and time is not because it is a mental construct that helps us understand motion.

Only the memory exists in light, gravitational, and electromagnetic fields. Yet the fields are always changing. Thus we rely upon the photons to carry the memory of the past. The photons travel a certain distance and we use this to produce a time.

Physical things, like photons, and other real things can create records that we interpret with our mental time construct. There are many types of records and they all have a persistence which means nothing mote than that they can be erased. When they are erased the the event of the motions that created them is gone. Our memories are records, light from a distant star is a record and, of course, records contain information. Without records there is nothing to create a mental image of the past, we have no direct mental contact with the ever changing now, and the future is just a speculative mental anticipation.

In my view, t he the slowing of a clock by moving it as a whole has nothing to do with slowing time. I think, this test shows that motion of the whole of something affects the motions of sub components of the whole.GG:That sounds good. The bodily processes slow as the speed increases.